


This One Was Gonna Be a Doozy

by grizzledranger



Series: Lloyd, Two L's [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Discussion of Canon Child Death, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grizzledranger/pseuds/grizzledranger
Summary: There was no mistaking that Jack’s clone was sitting in a car on his driveway.He looked terrible.





	This One Was Gonna Be a Doozy

**Author's Note:**

> It's a one-shot right now, but the plot bunnies are already multiplying. I might post a longer sequel.

Jack was functioning mostly on autopilot as he drove his exhausted, achy-kneed, sorry self home from the Mountain after having been off-world for almost a month. The mission had gone a bit sideways, as missions often did for SG-1.

Everything had turned out fine in the end, but he was fast approaching the point where he stopped denying, at least to himself, that he was getting a little long in the tooth to be leading an off-world team, especially one as trouble-prone as the SGC’s premiere first contact team.

He was grateful that he would be able to spend this particular night at home. There was beer in the fridge and hockey games and Simpsons reruns on the DVR. Later, when he had enough beer in him, he'd bring up the box that waited for him in the basement, but he wasn't thinking about that right now. Beer first.

As he absentmindedly turned onto his street, the part of him that maintained constant situational awareness noticed an unfamiliar dark sedan parked on his driveway. He cursed under his breath. So much for his quiet evening of balancing on a knife edge between remembrance and avoidance.

The cherry on his month-long shit sundae was that whoever it was that had had the audacity to park in his spot.

Heads were going to roll.

He pulled onto his driveway and parked (not in his spot, damn it) and looked over into the unfamiliar sedan in hopes of catching a glimpse of whoever it was that was just _asking_ to be ripped a new one.

He wasn't quite prepared to see a teenager sitting slumped in the driver’s seat, white-knuckled hands gripping the wheel, staring unseeingly at the dashboard.

Jack's gut churned. Impossibilities seemed possible for a split second before reality asserted itself. It took Jack a moment to recognize the lanky teen, and then it felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach.

This one was gonna be a doozy.

With a sigh, he got out of his truck and walked up to the driver's side window, which was open in deference to the hot summer day. He tapped on the door lightly, just in case the kid was out of it enough that he hadn't noticed Jack’s arrival.

He ignored that the kid wasn't a kid. He especially ignored any resemblance the kid might have to another kid who was very carefully not on his mind today.

Jack didn't need the headache that came with contemplating this shit. He needed that beer sooner rather than later.

His visitor didn't react at all for a long few moments, then turned to look at Jack. His features were already maturing into a closer semblance of what they would look like as an adult.

There was no mistaking that Jack’s clone was sitting in a car on his driveway.

He looked terrible.

Jack waited as the kid opened his mouth and his throat worked but no sounds came out.

"It's his birthday. I don't even have a picture," he finally rasped.

 _Charlie_.

Jack felt like he'd been sucker punched, even though he'd been pretty sure he knew what was coming. So much for carefully not thinking about it.

Knowing that his clone was… him, he understood that his clone knew how awkward this all was. If their positions had been reversed, Jack knew just how far gone he'd have to be to show up at the doorstep of a man who he felt had gotten to keep everything while he himself had had everything ripped away from him.

Shit.

“I have to sweep for bugs. I've been away for a month. You shouldn't be here. You might’ve been made. If you haven’t, you might still be.”

Eyes too old to be in such a young face gave him a baleful look. “I'm kinda past caring about that right now.”

Jack believed him. He was familiar with the look in the kid’s eyes. He’d seen it often enough in the mirror.

Jack shrugged. “There's beer waiting in the fridge.”

And odd expression crossed his clone’s face. “Haven't had one of those in a while.”

“That must suck.” The words were out of his mouth before he really thought about them.

His clone chuckled darkly. It was a jarring sound to hear from someone who looked like they barely shaved.

“You have no idea.”

Jack said nothing. There was nothing to say. “The back of my neck is prickling. Come inside so I can do the sweep. Everything else…” Jack trailed off.

There wasn't much to say about everything else.

His clone waited silently in the entrance while Jack found the usual number of bugs in the house. He'd have been mildly worried and insulted if he hadn't found anything. Thankfully, nothing seemed to be sensitive enough to have picked up anything from the driveway. They'd put too much effort into hiding the fact that, contrary to the official report, his clone had survived.

The usual sweep completed, Jack reached into a kitchen drawer full of tchotchkes and pulled out a seemingly random little doohickey. With a little flick, the Asgard anti-surveillance device that Thor had gifted him a while back activated. Jack and not-quite-Jack both let out a breath they hadn't really been aware of holding.

He gestured for the kid to have a seat in the living room and grabbed the pack of beer from the fridge and placed it on the coffee table. They both grabbed bottles.

The kid seemed content to sit and drink in silence, alternating between looking around and not looking around, his expression unreadable.

Jack contemplated what it must be like to sit in one’s own home but have no claim to it. He was self-aware enough to know that there was a part of him that envied his clone. Leading SG-1 and being second in command of the base that stood between EaIrth and all the bad in the universe was no easy task and the years had been wearying. He'd been happily retired before he was pulled back into all this shit. His clone was free from all the responsibilities that weighed on Jack. He was free to live a life that Jack dreamed of one day living, while Jack willingly bore the burdens of command, duty, and service.

Tonight, though, he considered that maybe it wasn't him that had gotten the shittier end of the stick. The kid hadn't been allowed to keep a single marker of his identity-- not his name, not his history, not his friends-- not even a single picture of his dead son.

“You're starting to realize you got the better end of this deal.” His clone observed. Seeing his own weary gaze in a different face was really disconcerting.

Jack shrugged. There was no use quibbling over who had it worse. He'd acknowledge that the kid’s lot was not as fortuitous as it had first seemed.

“I'm having trouble continuing to call you ‘kid’ in my head. Whaddaya go by?”

There. That was an easy enough topic.

“James O’Dwyer. I didn't pick the name. I go by Jay.”

“Jay. Easy to remember to respond to.”

“Took a while to get used to anyway. Everyone at school thinks I’m ignoring them on purpose. Especially the teachers. It’s a clusterfuck. High School is not working out.”

“I thought you'd welcome the opportunity to actually have a wasted youth. I… we didn't get that.”

“I'm surrounded by hormonal teenagers. All day. Every day.”

“That can't be all bad.” Jack gave the kid a speaking look.

Jay gave him an incredulous look. “I'm 51!”

“You're 16!”

“Do you find high schoolers attractive?”

“That's disgusting!”

“Exactly!”

“But you're actually a teenager!”

“Not in any way that counts! Is that what you think I've been doing, getting a redo on our youth? Living it up and experimenting like we never could!?” His clone’s expression was incredulous and more than a little incensed.

“Apparently not!”

And they'd run smack into another topic to be avoided. Jack absolutely refused to discuss what it would mean for them specifically to have grown up in a different time and without a plan for a military career.

“Go to college early.” Jack switched tracks a little desperately.

Thankfully, Jay seemed just as eager to drop the topic. He considered the proposition.

“I’d need to put together some paperwork.”

Jack considered it. The kid would need a good enough high school record to get into any college worth its salt. He'd need help with that.

“I'll pull some strings.”

“Thanks. I don’t think I’d have lasted much longer with the current situation.”

“That another reason you came over?” They were not going to discuss the elephant in the room that was the first reason.

Jay pinned him with dark eyes. “There was nothing planned about this visit. I wouldn't do that to you… or me.”

Jack sighed. He knew that. He couldn't seem to stop stepping in it today.

“I know. Sorry. Dumb question.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a while, sipping their beers.

“Simpsons or Hockey?”

“I missed the last game.”

“Alright.”

Jack selected the most recent game and sat back. Thy lapsed into a semi-awkward silence, the bottles disappearing at an alarming rate. Jack grabbed some more from the pantry and they drank them warm.

At some point past midnight, after they’d switched to watching Simpsons reruns, he headed down to get the box of Charlie’s things waiting in the basement.

His clone’s hands shook as he delicately handled the contents of the box after Jack gently placed them on the coffee table. His hands passed reverently over Charlies old things and various keepsakes.

“He'd have been seventeen this year.” Jay spoke after long silence. “Sometimes I can't bear to look in the mirror.”

Jack sucked in a breath. He'd noticed the similarities in age when the whole thing had started. Dropping the kid off at High School had been its own special kind of torture. Every time he saw this clone, he had trouble not seeing an imagined double.

“It might be why I didn't think too hard about what to do about you.” Honesty.

Jay didn't respond for a long while, then sighed. “I get it. I don't like it, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't get it. You're the original, anyway. You didn't have to help keep me alive or set me up with a new life.”

“Yeah I did. And I did a shit job of it.”

“Yeah.”

The conversation trailed off and Jack came to a decision. He found and set aside his favorite photo of him and Charlie and grabbed his favorite photo of the team from the mantle. He had the negatives in a safe deposit box if he wanted a copy made. These were small enough that Jay would easily be able to keep them well hidden.

The kid watched him with unreadable eyes as he placed the photos on the coffee table. He picked up the photos reverently, passing careful fingers over familiar faces.

“Keep those. I'll make the necessary changes to my Will so someone safe will make sure you get the important stuff if something happens.”

“That's morbid.”

“It is what it is.”

“It's weird is what it is.”

“No arguments here.”

“...”

“...”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

\-----

When Jack woke up the next morning, his back on fire from having fallen asleep on the couch, Jay was gone. A scribbled note had been left on the coffee table among the empty bottles.

_Resuming communications though established channels._

Jack snorted.

There were no established channels. Looks like it was back to mutual avoidance. Jack would make sure the other guy got set up with what he needed and then life could go back to normal.

Then, further down the scrap of paper, written as if after a long pause.

_and thanks._


End file.
